California will reach the halfway point in its rainy season this weekend. Hopes that the three-year drought will be washed away are probably already in the past. While December brought heavy rains that put the state on pace for a normal season, there hasn’t been much precipitation since then. Since Jan. 1, Sacramento and Fresno have received too little to measure. “We’ve had four weeks of a very minimal amount of rain in the northern part of the state, which is where our key reservoirs lie,” said Pete Fickenscher, senior hydrologist at the California Nevada River Forecast Center in Sacramento. Now the forecast calls for a high pressure ridge to form along the West Coast, bringing sun, mild temperatures and an extended dry spell. “They certainly have a dry forecast with that ridge,” said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland . “That […]